One day I was watching the show Chef Table (Volume 4) on Netflix and saw an episode on Corrado Assenza. He has a bakery in Sicily that has been in his family for over 100 years, and one of the things they make everyday is gelato. I never heard of gelato made with ricotta cheese before, but I've made homemade cannolis before and I've used homemade ricotta cheese to make the filling. So I figured why not find a way to make ice cream with ricotta cheese?
I found a recipe online and experimented with it until I came up with something I fell in love with. Being a chocolate lover, I must add dark chocolate chips to my ice cream. I was inspired by the Chef Table episode to also add dried apricots (since Sicily is known for their apricots and its mentioned in the episode) as well as roasted pistachios (reminding me of my Italian grandfather, Joseph Palumbo, who loves them). It's absolutely delicious - it's super creamy and tastes similar to homemade cannoli filling!
Now that my wife and I have "gone Wild", I decided to revise this recipe, adjusting the ingredients to make the recipe Wild Diet approved. I came across a Wild Diet ice cream recipe using raw unfiltered honey instead of sugar. I've never tasted this type of honey before, so I decided to try it. Amazingly, it takes very much like sugar. It's naturally sweet and a much healthier alternative to traditional sugar (raw unfiltered honey has a lower glycemic index and retains its natural nutrients and antioxidants when compared to filtered processed honey). I also modified my homemade ricotta recipe (as well as this recipe) to use organic whole milk and organic heavy cream from grass-fed cows (healthy animal = healthy fat). The result is an ice cream recipe that is now one of our favorite new healthy desserts.
A word of caution. Raw, unfiltered honey is a natural product, and there are many different types of raw, unfiltered honey. Even the same type of honey and brand can have different levels of sweetness from season to season. So you must adjust the amount of honey you add each time you make this recipe, especially if it's a different type of honey. I recommend starting with 1/4 cup of honey, tasting, and then adding up to 1/2 cup of honey (or more) until you reach your desired level of sweetness.
If you don't have an ice cream maker and container to store it in, visit our Kitchen Essentials page to find the ones we use on Amazon.
Video Tutorial (Season 2, Episode 1)
In this video, my kids and I make the ice cream, and my wife joins in at the end to taste it. Don't forget to chill your ice cream churning bowl in your freezer overnight, and note that although you can make this relatively quickly, it must finish chilling in the freezer for at least 4 hours to get it to the right consistently before you can eat it. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do! And don't forget to adjust the amount of raw unfiltered honey you use to achieve the desired level of sweetness each time you make this!
Recipe
Here is a link to the recipe made in this video: https://www.ardolinoskitchen.com/the-kitchen-table/desserts/wild-ricotta-ice-cream
Tips, Tricks, and Essentials
For tips and tricks cooking with children, read our post here: https://www.ardolinoskitchen.com/the-kitchen-table/tips-tricks/cooking-with-children
Looking for kitchen equipment? Like what you see in our videos? Check out our recommendations for your kitchen: https://www.ardolinoskitchen.com/kitchen-essentials